LILLEY: Ford makes wrong cuts at Legal Aid

The news sounded absolutely cruel when it first broke, Legal Aid Ontario, as part of cost savings measures, would no longer pay an accused’s lawyer to show up in court for a bail hearing.

It made it sound like the government was forcing people at the bottom of the economic ladder to fend for themselves if they ran afoul of the law.

Not quite, while Legal Aid won’t pay for the lawyer of your choice to show up, duty counsel will still be on site for bail hearings and anyone having to go to court in need of legal aid will need to use those lawyers for bail hearings.

“Legal Aid is no longer going to pay another criminal lawyer to show up to for two hours to bump aside the already available lawyer. This is bad news for lawyers who bill by the hour, but good news for taxpayers,” said Jesse Robichaud, a spokesman for Attorney General Caroline Mulroney.

Ok, so this will save taxpayers money? How much?

That’s a question Robichaud couldn’t answer. In fact, despite knowing this announcement was coming, he couldn’t offer much detail. The government wants you to know they are saving you money, just don’t ask them how or how much.

Call Legal Aid I was told.

The bail fees change is just one of many from Legal Aid. A briefing to staff and lawyers that work with the system detailed changes across the board in search of savings.

The total goal is to find $10 million in efficiencies on a budget of $487 million — or about 2% savings. I’m not an expert in the system and even those that are would likely need time to analyze the changes to give a fair representation.

That said, I’m pretty sure the government is stretching everything when they maintain this is just about saving a few bucks by stopping personal lawyers from being paid for bail hearings. First off, bail hearings rarely take just two hours, sometimes lawyers and their clients are at court all day.

Secondly, being an effective lawyer requires hours of work before the hearing. Legal Aid has never paid for that.

Characterizing this as not paying “lawyers who bill by the hour” to show up for two hours is simply false. Defence lawyer Ari Goldkind said that when he takes on Legal Aid cases, it is at a loss considering the hours he puts in and the amount he is paid.

As for duty counsel, it isn’t a system he likes.

“As somebody who started their career as duty counsel 20 years ago, one of the things the duty counsel themselves will tell you is that they can’t get to all the files they have in a day,” Goldkind said.

These changes will add 30-40 extra clients a day for duty counsel and not save money, Goldkind said. He also claims it will hurt the justice system for the most vulnerable.

Goldkind realizes many people won’t care and believe anyone that ends up in court is guilty. While he won’t say everyone that he has represented has been innocent, robbing the least fortunate of proper representation is the wrong way to go.

Goldkind worries that Mulroney, a lawyer in New York but not Ontario, might be heading towards an American-style public defender system, something he says doesn’t work.